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I had it happen on my old Hyundai Accent GS (2002) way back in 2007 before I got rid of the car.
What had happened is debris fell down a vent into the squirrel cage. Eventually, I cleaned the debris out, but the brushes made a ticking sound and the motor ran slow and slower until one day it didn’t blow air.
I replaced the blower motor and it was good as new. It was easy as the blower motor was under the dash held in by three bolts and one power connector.
In contrast my current Mazda 3 (2008) is ticking and a tiny bit noisy. Apparently they hid that blower motor so far out of site and mind it is a 5.3 hour job… so I don’t plan on fixing it unless it gets worse.
Don’t know where the blower motor is on my 2013 G37, but it is, of course it is working perfect for now.
This happened on my Cavaliers all the time. I just tried to keep the fresh air intake cleaned off as much as possible. Got to love pine needles and maple seeds. My 2002 Rendezvous, in GM’s infinite wisdom, did not come with a cabin air filter but it did come with a place to install one. This is even in the owner’s manual. Of course, me being a parts person, I installed the cabin filter then listened to my husband ask why. I still make sure things stay cleaned off but that’s pretty easy because it gets parked inside every night.
[quote=”tgmav5″ post=54945]This happened on my Cavaliers all the time. I just tried to keep the fresh air intake cleaned off as much as possible. Got to love pine needles and maple seeds. My 2002 Rendezvous, in GM’s infinite wisdom, did not come with a cabin air filter but it did come with a place to install one. This is even in the owner’s manual. Of course, me being a parts person, I installed the cabin filter then listened to my husband ask why. I still make sure things stay cleaned off but that’s pretty easy because it gets parked inside every night.[/quote]
I would have done the same. Those cabin filters help keep a lot of that stuff out of the blowers.
Thanks for your comment.
The last car my parent’s ownd was a 1990 Volvo 740 GLE twin cam, non turbo or intercooled. We had a vary strange noise in the last few years of it’s dreadfull life. Sounded like a native american war cry. came on at random, a part’s store person said it was debris in the hvac, but at the time I had no clue how to get into it like I do now and my parent’s didn’t let me do much with the car. It eventually died due to oil issues…Basically my parent’s should not be around a car machanically unless they are with someone who know’s what they are doing; They kept putting in different thiscosities of oil, like 5w-30, 10-20 ect, I at the time didn’t know any better and put in full synthetic when it was running on conventional since day one of it’s existance…yea bad idea when it sprung a huge leak at the front of the oil pan, rained synthetic oil and every 45 mintues of driving we had to put more in. I thanks to Eric know now to never do that with my car. Maybe when either I rebuild the engine or put an STI engine into my subaru.
Switched my Mazda to Synthetic at 30k and it never leaked a drop before or after the switch.
My Mazda 3 2008 (4dr sedan 2.3l S Touring) was designed by morons. It has a cabin filter that doesn’t keep crap out of the blower, which is impossible to replace without ripping out the entire dash, battery, computer, and break booster… as far as I can tell.
Even the cabin air filter requires removing 2 kick pannels, disconnecting the negative battery terminal, removing the glove box and its attached light, disconnecting the fuse junction box under the glove box with a bunch of wiring harnesses, some sensor cable, the bracket for the fuse box, a couple clips and some carpet, then the cover to the cabin filters…
Of course there are two of them (tongue and grove)and naturally the top one goes in first, so you get to fight gravity when putting the bottom one in.
******
The Oil change is also hell! You have to jack it up onto jack stands (or ramps) because it is otherwise too low. Then you have to remove some type of under the car plastic shield with about 17 fasteners. Finally there is the oil plug (normal) and then the filter which has its own oil plug on the housing then you remove the container and replace the inner cartridge! That’s right! Some Japanese engineer thought it would be funny to make people replace the cartridges within the filter instead of use an off-the-shelf filter. All in all the Oil change takes about .6 to .8 hours.
God news is changing the spark plugs is easier than changing the air filter, lol!
Nice video Eric!
Yeah, those blower motors can be a pain in the a##!! 😆
And they have a curious way of going bad in lots of different ways…
For example, I remember when the blower motor in my dear old Citroen AX GT started making weird squeaky noises on the first speed, then started to work only on the second and third, and slowly , it seemed to make a lot of effort to turn.
In the end when it did not turn in 2nd or 3rd position I had to take it off.
That was the first time I had to purchase a new bit for my ratchet kit, in fact the nuts holding the motor needed a very deep bit, which I didn’t have.
Also the suggestion you gave to remove first the hardest nut, is very good indeed, in fact I remember there was a nut completely hidden from view, and I found out about that only after taking away the two other nuts, and the motor didn’t want to come away.When I removed it I discovered it was the sealed-no-screws-no-bolts-riveted-type! :angry:
Sincce I was young and moneyless I decided to try and pry it open, so I drilled the rivets holding the plastic container where the motor was contained, and then the other two rivets holding the motor attached to one half of the container.
It was very very dusty (the car did not have AC, so no cabin filter) and the motor bearing was literally seized by dust.
I then remembered Star Wars, when Luke puts the two droids in a warm oil bath to clean them, and did the same with the motor, and it worked!
The bearing did un-seize and then I managed to solder some meccano nuts in place of the rivets, and used some of the long meccano screws to re-assemble the motor blower container.
Then I tried it and discovered the first speed resistor was completely cooked , probably because of the strain the seized bearing had put on it.
So I decided to bypass the first speed and keep the two others and it kept working for years , until the end of the car (sigh! 🙁 )
I have to say I do not care to repeat the experience, as you Eric have shown, blower motors are a bit of a fight to remove!
By the way, luckily on my other Citroen (the BX in the avatar) there are two blower motors, one for each side of the car, and they both are external to the cabin, and very reachable, lucky me! :woohoo:
Ok that’s all folks!
Live long and prosper (and stay dirty!)
10nico
I have a 1999 civic and had the same problem. Mine was easier to get to. All I had to do was remove the kick panel and the three bolts holding the mower in place and out it came. The computer on my car was located behind the kick panel so I didn’t have to remove it.
My ford windstar blower motor would whine only in winter.I took it out,removed the plastic squirl cage and plastic back off and vacuumed it out.Most big supply stores like home depot carry electric motor oil in a 3 in 1 small oil container…its blue and says up to 3/4 horse power motors.I sprayed mine out with electrical cleaner then oiled the bearings.Very quiet now and saved 80 bucks from the dealership.Money well saved till I get a flat tire. :whistle:
At my job we have an old 92 S-10 with multiple issues, the least of which is it’s ugly and banged up, and that’s why we love it, unfortunately, the company refuses to put any money or time into it since it’s old and ugly.
One major issue since my department inherited this ugly stepchild has been the defroster, or the lack thereof. I looked at it, replaced a fuse and got the blower running, but no air came out the vents. I played with the controls and made sure all the vent doors work, and determined the blower was running backwards, as well as all the resisters for the blower speeds were burnt out. Since the motor is mounted on a plastic housing, I figured how to reverse the polarity, but either the motor is “biased” to one direction and drawing three times the amount of current it’s supposed to, or the bearings are so far gone it takes triple the current to spin. It also growls like an angry cat in the dash.
So our fix is to put a 30 amp fuse on the blower motor and hope we don’t fry the heater circuit.
Since the weather is warming up a coworker and myself are set to “pimp it out” on our own time, basically clean up the interior, replace the seat upholstery, the carpet, the radio, and any other interior nastiness, so I may be able to look at replacing the motor if we have time and money.
First thank you for the videos. I have done this repair multiple times to my wife’s 2007 Pilot. The stupid part is that that vehicle has a cabin air filter, but it is located downstream from the blower motor, just before the evaporator. The only thing the filter is good for is catching the chopped up leaf debris after the blower gets through with them. This is a $200+ job at the local dealership.
[quote=”WarEagleWill” post=69168]First thank you for the videos. I have done this repair multiple times to my wife’s 2007 Pilot. The stupid part is that that vehicle has a cabin air filter, but it is located downstream from the blower motor, just before the evaporator. The only thing the filter is good for is catching the chopped up leaf debris after the blower gets through with them. This is a $200+ job at the local dealership.[/quote]
Actually the filter is above the blower intake. It is amazing how stuff still seems to get in there though. You might check to see if you have mice if you see insulation in the motor. We had a lot of issues with MDX’s on our lot at the dealer. It’s the same as your vehicle BTW.
Actually, some Hondas have the filter after the blower. Certain years of Pilots are configured like the attached diagram. Blower, filter, then evaporator.
I have a 1990 Accord and the blower motor seems harder than the video here to take apart. It seems deeper into the glove compartment. Any advise on how to reach it?
Thanks.
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